tomatoes

Making the most of some pretty tomatoes...

before they're all lost to cool evenings hinting at the arrival of fall.

happy weekend

I heard a rumor that it just might not rain this weekend... Which is good news for these poor, porch-bound tomatoes.
Happy gardening - happy weekend to you all!

july's tomatoes

Principe Borghese, yellow pear, sungold, and orange-fleshed purple smudge.

How do you like to eat them?

pondering preserving

I began peeling tomatoes at 7:00 this morning. By 8:00 the scent of boiling oregano-spiced sauce was wafting upstairs into the bedroom. (I won't lie. Even this early the smell sparks a pang of hunger cereal cannot compete with...)
After a few not-so-successful attempts to preserve raw-packed tomatoes, pizza sauce has become the preferred method of canning the San Marzanos that have just begun ripening.
As the canner was bubbling away this morning, I was pondering the act of preserving food. As the notion of eating local, seasonal items is such a hot topic these days, I wondered, even if these items come from your own backyard and were packed away months ago, is it odd to eat tomatoes in middle of January? Blueberries in October? Does doing so confuse our sense of the season?
Best not to think too hard so early in the morning...

But rather to share a recipe that celebrates some of these local, seasonal goodies while they are still abundant:
Panzanella
(adapted from Joanne Weir's recipe for Tuscan Bread Salad with Tomatoes and Basil in From Tapas to Meze)

Ingredients:

1/2 loaf of day-old rustic bread (about 1/2 pound)*
3/4 cup water
4 tomatoes (I used a variety of carbon, San Marzano and orange-fleshed purple smudge), seeded and chopped
1 medium red onion, diced
1 seedless cucumber, peeled and chopped
2 small cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons capers (rinsed if they are salt-packed)
handful of fresh basil leaves, torn
handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
1/4 cup plus 1 ounce extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Slice the bread into 1-inch thick slices and place on a large plate. Sprinkle both sides of the slices with the water and let sit for 1 minute. Gently squeeze the slices with your hands to dry the bread. Tear the slices into rough bit-sized pieces and place them on paper towels to dry for 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, garlic, capers, basil and parsley. Add the dried bread and toss gently to combine.
In a separate small bowl, whisk together the balsamic and white wine vinegars with the olive oil. Add to the bread mixture, tossing gently to combine, and season with salt and pepper.

*If your bread is not quite stale, preheat the oven to 300 degrees and place the slices directly on the center rack for about 5 minutes or so just to dry them out a bit (not toast them) before sprinkling them with the water.

never turn your back on zucchini...

...or this may be the outcome:

And it wasn't the only one...

But look! Tomatoes!!! (and beans and eggplant and peppers and cucumbers...)

It's good to be home.

Grill-Roasted Late Summer Vegetables with Fresh Oregano

Ingredients:

about 5 Cups chopped zucchini (this was 1 large, 1 medium, and 1 small zucchini for me)

1 very ripe deep red tomato, chopped

1 very ripe orange or yellow tomato, chopped

3 sprigs fresh oregano, leaves stripped, chopped, and stems discarded

1 large clove garlic, minced

olive oil

large pinch of sea salt

a few grinds of pepper

chopped fresh parsley, for serving (optional)

aluminum foil (a sheet about 24 inches long)

This is one of my favorite ways to cook in the summer, but this dish can also be made in a roasting pan in the oven. The cooking time might vary - keep an eye on the veggies, and I would heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Prepare a grill (we use a charcoal grill with a hinged cover).

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, and oregano. Add the salt and freshly ground pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Toss gently to coat the vegetables in the oil. Set aside.

Make an aluminum foil packet: fold a sheet of aluminum foil (about 24 inches long) in half to form a squarish shape. Fold over two of the open sides crimping them a bit to seal. Gently open the one un-crimped side and spoon the vegetable mixture into the packet. Fold over the opening to seal. You should have a tightly sealed squarish foil packet.

When ready, place the foil packet on the grill, put the lid on, and cook until the vegetables are cooked through - about 25 minutes depending on the heat of the grill. Ours was approximately 225 degrees. If the foil packet begins to char on the grill, move it to a cooler spot or lower the coals underneath it. When the vegetables are ready, carefully transfer the packet to a plate, open it slowly (there will be steam) and transfer them to a serving bowl. Garnish with a bit of chopped fresh parsley, if desired, and serve.

waiting for tomatoes

While I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for my very own tomatoes to ripen (so slow this year!), I've been using up what's left in the pantry. And though I'm soooooo ready for the first warm tomato off the vine, I still think it's amazing what a can of whole, peeled plum tomatoes can become. Throwing in some fresh herbs (tarragon, for instance) and making a quick sauce for some spectacular homemade ricotta gnocchi yielded some incredible results the other day.

Waiting for tomatoes might not be quite so hard after all...

Ricotta Gnocchi with Tomato-Tarragon Sauce

(inspired by and adapted from: this)

For the sauce:

Ingredients:

2 Tb. olive oil

1 small onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tb. fresh tarragon, chopped

1-28 oz. can whole plum tomatoes (broken)

sea salt

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt. Saute for a minute or two, until translucent. Add the garlic and tarragon and saute for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and their juice, bring to a slow simmer, and cook for 20-30 minutes, or until sauce has thickened to desired consistency. Season to taste with salt.

While sauce simmers, prepare the gnocchi.

For the gnocchi:

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Ricotta cheese (I use part-skim)

1/2 Cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 tsp. sea salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 - 1 1/2 Cups flour

See recipe: here.

tomatoes for days

I know a cold front is on the way, and I know it's September, and I know I've already mentioned my excitement about the coming fall, but the truth is, I still have tomatoes. And after all the boiling, peeling, seeding, chopping, and canning, after the freezing and drying, salsa and soup, I wanted something a little less laborious to do with the last of the tomatoes. So I decided to try this:
Oil-Packed 'Sun-Dried' Tomatoes with Rosemary

To make these I sliced several pounds of Roma tomatoes into eighths (halves and quarters were too large for my dehydrator), laid them out on dehydrator trays, and sprinkled them with rosemary salt.*
I then put them in the dehydrator until they were dry but still pliable. My machine ran overnight and then for a few hours the next day to get them to this state. If you don't have a dehydrator, the tomatoes can be dried to this state by spreading them on a baking sheet and placing in a 200 degree (Fahrenheit) oven until done.
Once the tomatoes had dried sufficiently, I packed them into a clean jar with a tight-fitting lid, added two small sprigs of fresh (washed and thoroughly dried) rosemary, and filled the jar with a nice olive oil to cover the tomatoes by at least 1/4 inch.**

Easy, delicious, and the best way I know to eat September tomatoes.

*To make rosemary salt:
Combined the leaves of 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary with approximately 1 1/2 cups medium-grind sea salt in the bowl of a food processor until rosemary is finely chopped and incorporated into the salt. Store in an air-tight container.

**Notes on storage and safety:
I will be storing my oil-packed tomatoes in the refrigerator. They should keep in the fridge for several months, though the oil will solidify. I've read other recipes that claim they can be kept in a dark, cool pantry, however I prefer the safer route of refrigerated storage. In addition, some recipes recommend dipping each tomato slice in vinegar before packing into the jar. This method supposedly helps acidify the the liquid and inhibits the growth of bacteria. I haven't tried this, but would consider it for the next batch. I'm curious about the flavor the vinegar would impart and, of course, if it helps preserve the fruit, so much the better.

A good book on this type of food preservation is Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning.

I'd love to hear from anyone else who's made their own oil-packed tomatoes. What method do you use?